Recent news
September 2025
Our work with Andrej Singer's group here at Cornell on light-induced strains in LaAlO3 is published in Physical Review Letters. See the Publications and News pages for more information.
Contact Us
Prospective PhD students: Please feel free to contact us by email once you have already been admitted to a Cornell PhD program. All admissions decisions are made by the admissions committee.
-
Phone: (607) 255-6429 -
Email: nbenedek@cornell.edu -
Department of Materials Science and Engineering 126 Bard Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-1501
Updates
Featured publication
Picosecond Expansion in LaAlO3 Resonantly Driven by Infrared-Active Phonons
- Authors:
- Jakob Gollwitzer, Jeffrey Z. Kaaret, Y. Eren Suyolcu, Guru Khalsa, Rylan C. Fernandes, Oleg Gorobtsov, Sören Buchenau, ChanJu You, Jayanti Higgins, Ryan S. Russell, Ziming Shao, Yorick A. Birkhölzer, Takahiro Sato, Matthieu Chollet, Giacomo Coslovich, Mario Brützam, Christo Guguschev, John W. Harter, Ankit S. Disa, Darrell G. Schlom, Nicole A. Benedek,* and Andrej Singer*
- Date:
- 2025
- Synopsis:
- We investigate the ultrafast structural dynamics of LaAlO3 thin films driven by short mid-infrared laser pulses at 20 THz. Time-resolved x-ray diffraction reveals an immediate lattice expansion and an acoustic breathing mode of the film. First-principles theory and a spring-mass model identify the direct coupling between coherently driven infrared-active phonons and strain as the underlying mechanism.